Missouri teacher hiring has continued at a relatively consistent pace, but fewer of those hires are new teachers. The percentage of teacher hires that are first-year teachers decreased by 5% between the 2012 and 2017 school years. Teachers from out of state or another Missouri district have filled that gap. The DESE report also noted that retention of first-year teachers decreased between the 2012 and 2015 school years.

The Missouri Hospital Association released a report in April 2019 indicating that the proportional economic costs of opioid use disorder vary widely between states. Life expectancy in the U.S. is falling, and part of that decrease is because of opioid-related deaths. According to Centers for Disease Control data, opioid related deaths have increased from 32,493 in 2015 to 47,576 in 2017. Missouri had 951 opioid overdose deaths in 2017, a 5% increase over the previous year.  This affects the economies of every state, including Missouri, whose economic cost of opioid use disorder as a percentage of GDP is 1.1% higher than the national rate.

The total cost for each state is composed of fatality costs and non-fatality costs. Fatality costs are based on the number of individuals who died from opioid overdoses and a measure of the monetary value of an individual’s risk of death. The non-fatality costs are based on the reduced productivity and increased reliance on health care, law enforcement and social services on the part of those with pain reliever use disorder.

Virgin Hyperloop One has been showing off its XP-1 pod in Missouri cities recently, including Kansas City in September and Columbia in October. But that’s a snail’s pace compared to the speed it was actually built to travel at — the company claims that a finished route would allow travel between Kansas City and St. Louis in as little as 28 minutes. Hyperloop and car travel times are estimates from Virgin Hyperloop One, train and bike figures are from Google Maps and the flight time estimate is from Google Flights. The Hyperloop figure represents the fastest of three possible routes for the proposed transit service.

Americans look all over the place for Halloween costume ideas, and social media is playing a growing part in their search. Still, social networks by themselves are not the only places people look for their outfits, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation — in fact, then tend to look more in other places. The main source (35 percent) for ensemble inspiration is online search, followed by perusing the aisles of a local shop (28 percent), and then asking family or friends (20 percent).

Americans plan to, on average, spend $86.27 on Halloween goods in 2019, so what are they spending on? 68 percent of respondents to a National Retail Federation survey said they’d be celebrating Halloween this year, but not everyone will be doing the same things. A whopping 95% of them will buy candy, and 72 percent will pick up some holiday decor. 67 percent will grab a costume… and 17 percent said they’d be dressing their pet up (the most popular option was a pumpkin, and the second highest was a hot dog — a classic option for a Dachshund.)

Halloween is just around the corner, and consumers are gearing up — literally. Americans plan to spend an average of $86.27 on Halloween goods this year, according to the National Retail Federation’s Annual Halloween Spending Survey. That adds up to $9.1 billion in candy, costumes and other purchases.

Precision agriculture techniques are used now to make planting, management of crops and harvesting more efficient. Modern technology and broadband connectivity are components of what the department of agriculture calls next-generation precision agriculture, many of which rely on high download and upload speeds. The problem: there is a major connectivity gap between rural and urban areas. The data here come from a USDA study of how much of these next-generation technologies rely on broadband connectivity.

Note: This data has several conditions.

• The precision agriculture and broadband figures are extrapolations. The study covered only some of the U.S. market, and based on their figures estimated the total impact on the U.S. market.
• The potential benefits from broadband are the maximums listed in the report, which provided a range for each category.